Tech spread (like religion)?

[Oregano]

I'm sorry. I really don't mean to sound like an obnoxious 3 year old ("Can I can I can I can I...") as I have brought this up once before briefly, but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to make the technologies spread in the same manner as the religions?

Or am I *really* s.o.l. until the SDK comes out?

Thanks for your thoughts,
~Oreg.

 

[MrUnderhill]

Whats SOL? So out of luck?

Anyway, what you're talking about is possible, but it'll take a lot of typing.

For each tech you want to spread, make a dummy religion for it that you can't convert to (not sure if you can do that, though). Every unit that uses, for instance, Iron Working, should check to see if it's parent city has the "Iron Working Religion", like with missionaries.

The tricky part would be spreading this technology to other civs. Perhaps when a certain number of cities get "Iron Working", a Python script would fire giving the civ Iron Working for free. And if the civ gets Iron Working from another source (i.e. trade), spread the Iron Working religion to his/her capital.

This concept could open up entire new mechanics, like Scholar units that spread technologies to your cities, and bonuses for the first person to research a tech (via Holy Cities).

 

[Redking]

Tech by osmosis, in a sense, or adjacency at least. Like in the real world.

Some one made a mod whereby you my gain a tech via city capture. It stands to reason that the same potential/random occurence might be triggered whenever establishing a trade route with some such other civ.

That's a main way technology spreads past and present anyhow, and the game mechanics might support it.

BTW, if the spread of religion in the game doesn't factor this way, then it should, because that's often how religion has spread as well.

BTW#2... SOL means sh-t out of luck

 

[Déja]

I don't think you would have to make dummy religions so much as write a python script to be executed every turn to compare the techs available to each adjacent civ and then check the trade routes and randomly give a tech to an appropriate civ... obviously it'd be a bit more in-depth than that, but the core idea should work.

 

[MrUnderhill]

True, but that way kind of messes up trading technologies around manually. Why would I pay 100 gold to get Feudalism when my peasants might pick it up for free within 10-20 turns?

That's why I liked the idea of using the religion system; it spreads city-to-city, rather than civ-to-civ. This way, technological spread is gradual and beneficial to the player, rather than a sudden nuisance to the current leader on the tech tree.

 

[Redking]

Why would I pay 100 gold to get Feudalism when my peasants might pick it up for free within 10-20 turns?

Because it might not be a guaranteed "pick up", but rather a smaller chance of osmosis.

Why would one of your cities understand Feudalism and not the rest of your civ, and what would a single city do with it? Feudalism would be dictated head down, not from the ground up.

 

[MrUnderhill]

You're absolutely right, but random osmosis has it's own issues.

To someone in the lead tech-wise, it would be like weaker civs are leeching off of their success. People would think twice about researching something important if there was a chance of accidentally giving it to their worst enemy.

To someone behind in the tech tree, it wouldn't be much better than walking over a goody hut and getting a free tech that way. And while you say it isn't a guaranteed pickup, over time, the chances of getting that tech get bigger and bigger to the point that eventually it *is* a guaranteed pickup.

It may be realistic, but it's not much fun.
The best way to handle this might be a mix of both methods. Maybe all the techs leading up to Alphabet or Education will work my way, and anything after that works the other way.

 

[csrjjsmp]

Or instead of randomly getting the tech all at once, have trade routes contribute one or two beakers to some technology rather than raw commerce.

 

[NeoAnderson]

There should be two kinds of technology, esoteric and simple.

A simple technology that you can learn by observing, such as any of the religions, or the political systems should osmose from culture to culture.

Technologies like nuclear science and chemistry however should be able to be contained.

 

[Drakken]

I agree with NeoAnderson. However I think it would be possible to incorporate Neo's ideas into the game.

Just like religions are treated you could change the rate of spread for each technology.

Most often in history religion and civics were encouraged to spread to neighboring countries to bring others into line with your countries thinking. Also many market and commerce techs would be spread through trade. Military applications and industrial techs are more guarded and would spread slowly if at all.

I also believe that you should receive "blueprints" to shorten research time and not the entire technology. It is up to the nation to take advantage of the blueprint and invest time to finish the research and apply the new tech to their country.

 

[Redking]

I also believe that you should receive "blueprints" to shorten research time and not the entire technology. It is up to the nation to take advantage of the blueprint and invest time to finish the research and apply the new tech to their country.

That's very good. Perhaps instead of getting the Tech, you'd get bonus beakers toward THAT tech's discovery.

You can leave aside a tech's research and later return to where you left off, correct?

Something in this line of thought is surely workable, realistic, AND fun.

The fun, as I see it, would be from the merit of sending forth "trader/merchant" units, or other mechanisms whereby you increase trade and therefore increase osmosis, a viable alternate or complimentary strategy for tech progression.

As for getting "robbed", that's the breaks. Perhaps means of protection can be found, to add fun to that end of it. Certain civics might better protect military or industrial techs from leaching away, while other promote the accelerated leaching of other techs (like Monotheism, or Communism).

Having a scientist and/or engineer specialist within a city might also inhibit tech flight resulting from that city's foreign trade (simulating the difference between a dedicated, organized research body/guild, and looser, informal research methods). By the same token, an artist and/or priest specialist might promote the outward spread/osmosis of non-secret techs (Monotheism, Communism) along foreign trade routes.